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Jun 30, 2014

Obvious Child, They Came Together and the Rebirth of the Romantic Comedy

By Josh Oakley

The romantic comedy never fully died. Like all things, it
came in waves, positioning itself in the right frame for the right time. But if
we take the modern era of the genre as beginning with When Harry Met Sally… (seems as good of a place as any), the
current decade does begin to throw some red flags up. In the twenty years after
that film’s release, only 1991, 1994 and 2001 failed to allow a romantic comedy
to break the top twenty in the box office. Since The Proposal landed at #16 in 2009, only Bridesmaids has managed to crack into a top position (#14). That’s
three years out of four hitting as many strikes as the previous two decades
combined. There are still plenty lingering in the margins, but if 2013 is any
indication on its own (and it likely is not, as these sorts of things go), the
financial collapse of Harry and Sally’s New York may finally be upon us. Taking
out animated films that may loosely earn the title of rom-com, the highest grossing
entry is The Best Man Holiday at…
#50. From a monetary standpoint, 2014 doesn’t seem much better in its offerings
at this point. But there may be a different answer, one that speaks to an
artistic rebirth rather than an economic one.

First, the deconstruction. For a rebirth to occur, something
truly must die, beaten into the ground so the next cycle may begin. Enter:
David Wain’s They Came Together, an
absurdist rom-com parody in the vein of Wet
Hot American Summer. The delirious film plunges into generic story-threads,
from Sally… to You’ve Got Mail. About half of the humor is derived from brilliant
jokes that have little to do with the genre at hand, but much of this
movie is indebted to the world that it skewers. A circular bit with a bartender
plays on the “down and out” pivot point most characters encounter, and the
visual gag accompanying the cry of “but I look terrible!” may be Together’s highlight.

The film is quintessentially the work of director Wain and
producer Michael Showalter, who split the writing credit. There’s a warmth, not
in the story itself, but in the world around it; a respect, or at least
appreciation of the thing they’re tearing apart. This makes sense, with the
amount of time devoted to any given project and with the attention to detail
many scenes find. A lot of the jokes are obvious (though still well executed),
but the exact pacing, knowing when to conform and when to distort, is a nimble
skill. The explicitness of this work as adaptation (of a genre, not any
singular piece) finds its apex with a scene of sublimely obvious foreshadowing
that pays off beautifully at the end. There’s chaos here, but it’s reigned in
at times, sometimes to the film’s detriment, but often to enhance as
both tribute and prank.

This is hardly the first parody of the romantic comedy, but
it may be the most gleefully anarchic. Wain and Showalter’s thrill at being let
loose in yet another sandbox can be felt throughout. So the schematic has been
revealed, and this feels like a nail in the coffin of not the genre as a whole,
but the version that’s existed for much of the modern era. What is there to do
after something like this; to make more romantic comedies in the house-style of
the post Sally… world would seem akin
to making a sequel to 22 Jump Street after
that film’s calculating (and hilarious) end credits. The path forward may have
already been transcribed, both last year with Enough Said and, more precisely, earlier this month with Obvious Child.

The former of the two seems a purposeful experiment; how
else to explain the sitcom-esque narrative twist that hurts (but far from
maims) what is otherwise a vivid, thoughtful look at two people rediscovering
what love feels like. The plotting is hammy, which does keep in line with the
rom-com of yore, but it also lessens the ultimate impact (this all filed under
the disclaimer that I quite adore much of Enough
Said). Instead, a film released in the same general vicinity as They Came Together, where New York is a
character and two mismatched souls find true love. Obvious Child aligns, in many ways, with the tropes that led to its
reputation as the “abortion rom-com”. Yet both halves of that definition are
lacking: the film is not about abortion
(at least not in a consuming, didactic way), nor is it what immediately comes
to mind as a romantic comedy. It’s using that language to invent something new,
both an acceptance and a rebuttal of the decades before it.

Obvious Child, as every person in America would know if the world were any fair, is about a
comedian in her late-20’s, and the events that spiral outward from a one-night
stand. There is indeed the meet-cute, the sex montage utilized in place of
nudity, and the awkward second date. Analyzing any one of these elements,
however, proves that something else is going on here, something more authentic.
That’s not to dismiss years of a genre whole cloth, but most of those were
hardly looking to be “real” in any sense. Even when they spoke to a deeper
pain, or grounded the story, there was a heightened style. See Jerry Maguire, one of my absolute favorites of all time. It has elements of truth, many of them in fact. But it
also has that “You had me hello” speech, one that is lovely but not in any way
true; no one speaks like that, except maybe Cameron Crowe.

Take that second date in Obvious
Child. Max (a charming Jake Lacy) warms a pat of butter in his hand for
Donna (Jenny Slate who, full-stop, deserves an Oscar or similar award for her
work here). It’s a beautiful moment, preceded by a wonderful moment and
followed by a poignant one. This is something one might do, but it’s also a
unique touch, a way to define Max, and in her reaction, define Donna as well.
There is so much going on, in the ways of authenticating this experience, in
the section of the story where many romantic comedies coast. The sex scene,
only briefly glimpsed, is perfectly built to with a dance montage set to Paul
Simon’s “The Obvious Child”. There’s more chemistry in the smiles, that
communal act of drunkenly appreciating a joyous song, than in most generically
steamy sex scenes.

What happens around the relationship is vital to a romantic
comedy as well, as Linda Holmes pointed out in her essay last year on the
subject. “[W]e may have to get a little more flexible about how romantic
comedies are delivered. The best ones often have other elements” she wrote.
What she’s getting at here is abundant in Obvious
Child, mainly in the film’s use of an unwanted pregnancy as the main
obstacle for the couple (or, as a stand-in for the real problem, Donna’s
opening-up issue, as these things in these movies often are). The way Child handles the topic of abortion has
already been (rightfully) applauded, because writer/director Gillian Robespierre
gets at something elemental about this and all roadblocks that may arise: as my
friend pointed out after seeing the film, she always makes it about the people.
This isn’t some abstract debate, or a swept-under-the-carpet punch-line. Some
of the best sequences in Child, from
a late-night conversation between mother and daughter to a more casual
discussion between Donna and her best friends, are derived from the impending
abortion meaning something. It’s never a question, but it is an event, a big one that
won’t define her life but will at least define that day, whenever she recalls
it. Robespierre cares that the feelings and people and events are real;
that they’re also clever and funny and wise is what elevates the film from good
to great.

Obvious Child doesn’t
offer a prescription for Hollywood; it’s made about a million and a quarter dollars as
of this writing. No, neither this nor They
Came Together will make waves financially(even more baffling for the latter; no matter how unique Wain’s sensibilities,
this is a spoof movie starring Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd. Oh, right, the
extended white supremacist joke). Creatively, though, Together seems to open the door for even more efforts with the
authentic sensibility of Child. A
wall has been torn down, the Emperor’s clothes are gone, and a new voice must
emerge. Perhaps, at least for the dedicated followers that seek out delightful
and moving prizes, this will become a trend. Just look at Obvious Child’s final scene: a quiet moment that stands in the face
of grand romantic gestures and speaks to the simple miracle of two people
finding each other in a world built of ways to be on one’s own. Isn’t that all,
besides some humor, we’ve ever wanted out of the genre, more ways to be less
alone? It could be happenstance that these two films were released in quick
succession. But that's how all romantic comedies begin: with a coincidence
that, through fate or a writer’s pen, blossoms into something eternal.